by While the height of the pandemic may have passed, the virus that causes COVID-19 continues to mutate with multiple variants circulating in all countries.
However, despite this, testing and surveillance have decreased, and experts are urging people to continue taking the threat of this disease seriously.
“The world has moved on from COVID and in many ways that’s a good thing because people can stay protected and safe, but this virus hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s circulating. It’s changing, it’s killing and we have to move on. “Maria Van Kerkhove, COVID-19 technical lead at the World Health Organization (WHO), told Euronews Next.
What are some of the most common COVID variants today?
All variants circulating today are sublineages of Omicron, a highly transmissible variant of COVID-19 that first emerged two years ago.
A sublineage, EG.5, also nicknamed Eris, currently represents more than half of the COVID-19 variants circulating globally. It was declared a variant of interest by the WHO back in August.
Cases of EG.5 increased over the summer, but it was recently overtaken in the United States by a closely related subvariant called HV.1. This subvariant now represents 29 percent of COVID-19 cases in the US, according to the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“HV.1 is essentially a variant derived from EG.5.1 (and previously XBB.1.5) that is simply accumulating some mutations that allow it to better infect people who have immunity to SARS-CoV-2,” said Andrew Pekosz, professor . to Euronews Next.
Pekosz, who studies the replication of respiratory viruses, said these variants likely arose as random mutations as part of the natural evolution of viruses.
According to the European Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC), variants similar to XBB 1.5, such as EG.5 (or Eris), are currently dominant, accounting for around 67 percent of cases in EU countries. EU and EEA.
The prevalence of another sublineage of Omicron called BA.2.86 has been “slowly increasing globally,” according to the WHO, which recently classified it as a “variant of concern.” Its sequences were first reported in Israel and Denmark in July and August.
“BA.2.86, when it emerged, was something that scientists were very concerned about because it was a variant that had a large number of mutations, particularly in the Spike protein, which is the target of the protective immunity provided by vaccines and infections. “Pekosz said.
Scientists believe this variant likely originated in a person with a compromised immune system that allowed the virus to replicate and accumulate mutations at a faster rate, but it has not come close to becoming dominant.
However, French authorities recently said that the majority of BA.2.86 cases in the country were a new JN.1 sublineage, which has been “detected in other countries but circulates mainly in Europe and particularly in France.”
It appears to have more mutations that make it more transmissible, Pekosz said.
Should we worry about new COVID variants?
RNA viruses like SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, are known to acquire mutations at a faster rate than other viruses “because they make more mistakes and don’t have the ability to correct them,” according to Pekosz. .
SARS-CoV-2 and its spike protein also appear to tolerate many mutations, similar to what scientists see with influenza.
But so far, although scientists are paying attention to these mutations, they see no change in the severity of the disease and the tests we use still detect the virus.
These new variants will continue to emerge and “for the most fragile in society, especially those with certain underlying health conditions, they will continue to contribute to hospitalizations and even deaths,” said Andrew Pollard, professor of infection and immunity at the University of Oxford. .
However, Pollard does not expect them to “restart a pandemic”, since globally there is strong population immunity to vaccination and previous infection.
While new COVID-19 families “are likely to be generated by mutation,” there have not been any “as successful as the Omicron variants that are dominating,” he said. “At least for now.”
The worst-case scenario would be a new variant that spreads more quickly and causes more severe diseases that vaccines don’t work against.
“We don’t take anything for granted. We have different scenarios that we are planning in terms of variants and their detection,” said Van Kerkhove, who is also acting director of epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention at the WHO.
Declining testing and surveillance ‘challenging’
At the moment, these variants are not causing a new large increase in cases or hospitalizations, and although experts say there is still enough sequencing to detect emerging variants, these efforts have slowed.
“What we’ve lost recently is the ability to get a real sense of all the diversity present in these virus populations,” Pekosz said.
Van Kerkhove encouraged people to continue getting tested if they think they have COVID-19 because that allows scientists to track the virus and then sequence it to study possible mutations.
“If they don’t test you, they can’t sequence you,” he said.
Reductions in testing and sequencing, as well as increased delays in obtaining data, “is a big challenge for us and slows our ability to conduct risk assessments for each of these subvariants,” he added.
Most importantly, even as the world moves forward, experts recommend that people get vaccinated, wear masks in crowds or around people at higher risk for severe COVID-19, and get tested to prevent further spread.
